NethSecurity, a downstream rebuild of OpenWrt and successor to the NethServer 7 firewall suite, has announced the release of its highly anticipated version 8.0, marking the project’s first stable release.
If you are unfamiliar with the project, here is more information about it. NethSecurity is a comprehensive UTM (Unified Threat Management) open-source Linux-based firewall solution designed primarily for small and medium-sized businesses.
It offers a robust suite of security features, including stateful packet inspection, deep packet inspection (DPI), VPN services, traffic shaping, and more. These features are accompanied by an intuitive web interface for easy configuration and management, making working with it a breeze.
In the just-released NethSecurity 8.0, users can benefit from advanced firewalling, intrusion detection and prevention, antivirus protections, and multi-WAN capabilities. Additionally, the system includes DNS and content filtering, among other features, ensuring comprehensive protection and enhanced network management.
But what’s more important is the new release’s Threat Shield Panel, which protects against attacks from known malicious IP addresses by utilizing detailed blocklists. Each list comes with a clear name and confidence score, providing transparency about the reliability of the protection measures.
Moreover, NethSecurity 8.0 boasts a new dashboard that enhances user interaction, making it more intuitive and informative. New configuration pages for DNS, DHCP, IPsec tunnels, and OpenVPN enhance users’ control over their network settings.
The modernized login experience and streamlined certificate and reverse proxy management further contribute to an improved user interface.
But wait, that’s not all. There’s more. The new release also introduces a Quality of Service configuration page, allowing users to tailor their network traffic management for a seamless online experience.
Alongside this, the system supports a more robust configuration of firewall rules and has upgraded its capabilities for handling VPNs (OpenVPN) and multi-network tunnels.
Lastly, the NethSecurity Controller, a new feature in the release, allows for the remote control of multiple NethSecurity installations, facilitating centralized management, secure communications, and easier configuration.
This web-based management tool also provides monitoring, logging, and metrics visualization, which are crucial for maintaining system integrity and performance. Of course, there are numerous bug fixes in addition to these highlighted updates.
NethSecurity 8.0 can be downloaded from the project’s website, as the announcement provides detailed information about all changes.
Image credits: NethSecurity Project
